Sermon Archive
Readings for 23 December 2007
Advent 4
Year A
The LORD spoke to Ahaz, saying, Ask a sign of the LORD your God; let it be deep as Sheol or high as heaven. But Ahaz said, I will not ask, and I will not put the LORD to the test. Then Isaiah said: "Hear then, O house of David! Is it too little for you to weary mortals, that you weary my God also? Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Look, the young woman is with child and shall bear a son, and shall name him Immanuel. He shall eat curds and honey by the time he knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good. For before the child knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good, the land before whose two kings you are in dread will be deserted."
Romans 1:1-7
Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God, which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy scriptures, the gospel concerning his Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh and was declared to be Son of God with power according to the spirit of holiness by resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord, through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith among all the Gentiles for the sake of his name, including yourselves who are called to belong to Jesus Christ,
To all God's beloved in Rome, who are called to be saints:
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly. But just when he had resolved to do this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, "Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins." All this took place to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet:
"Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel," which means, "God is with us." When Joseph awoke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him; he took her as his wife, but had no marital relations with her until she had borne a son; and he named him Jesus.
Sermon
The Rev. Susan B. P. Norris
"Now the birth of Jesus Christ happened this way:
when Jesus' mother, Mary, was engaged to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit.
Joseph, her husband, an upright person unwilling to disgrace her,
decided to divorce her quietly.
In nomine:
Isn't that always the way?
You think you've done something really RIGHT, Mom.
Your daughter Mary is engaged to Joseph, a solidly middle class carpenter
whom she likes and we like and our relatives like.
The engagement party went off splendidly, the wedding is next week
You already have the wine; you've gotten the Rabbi and hired the canopy,
and the ungrateful kid turns up pregnant!
So now Joachim has to go explain to Joseph - Joachim would rather DIE -
that he has failed to protect and govern his OWN daughter,
and now your names, and Mary's will be public mud forEVER
and the down payment on the feast is not refundable,
and what are you going to do with a new baby at your age,
and . . . . . . and . . . . . and . . . . .
Haven't we all been somewhere like that?
Indeed aren't some of us there right now?
What were we expecting???????
What were we expecting ???????
She 's such a beautiful girl, healthy and strong
from a truly fine and holy family.
(Her Mom's side is directly related to Zechariah, the priest, and Joseph claims lineage from David through Solomon, Jeconiah and Eleazar.)
She seemed happy to be my wife at the party –
she knows I'll provide well for her.
How could she have done this?
I'll have to put her away - but if I let them know why - she'll be stoned
I can't do that. Who would marry me then?
All I want is a wife and children,
I have a right to expect an heir for my shop
Sons, to pass on my trade and to pray for me when I die
That's what I, Joseph, am expecting
It's not too much to ask, is it - this ordinary life and marriage I was expecting?!
********************
"Behold a young woman will conceive and give birth,
her child will be named "Immanuel" which means "God with us."
The wolf shall feed with the lamb . . .
The lion shall eat straw like the ox,
They shall not hurt or kill in all my holy mountain,
for the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of God
as the waters cover the sea.
. . . . . . . . .
(And people and countries won't hate each other any more for stupid things –
like private religious beliefs,
because they'll all see God as God is, (and become Episcopalians -
like those of us who already know the truth.)
And there won't be any more wars,
or poverty, or cancer and heart disease,
and the government will simply be for administrative services
and patriotic celebrations.
Kids will all obey their parents, graduate from College with honors,
and settle down to raise attractive, smart, respectful grandchildren.
Parents and Teachers will never be unfair, or lack understanding
and it will be really easy to do what they say, because
we'll all like the same music and clothes,
and we'll all agree on what is really important.)
Tomorrow night, dear people, is Christmas Eve.
Eternity will break into time on December 24, 2007
and the Christ - the Messiah - the Promised One.
will come again to earth as a baby in a manger.
Tomorrow night, if only for moments, we will glimpse,
will celebrate, will feel and perhaps for a moment, know,
the presence of God's glory.
Setting aside the unreality of our imaginary potential expectations as I dreamed them up,
What or Whom are we expecting?
If we're worldly wise, we might be expecting something like
Anna (Mary's mother’s) story, or Joseph's stories.
We all know that however well we "plan" Christmas - human beings
- and turkeys, cookies, wrapping paper, even Christmas trees,
just don't react or behave according to plan.
We may also even suspect that what is a prefect plan for us,
May not seem so perfect to others,
perhaps not even to our own family’s members.
So what are we actually expecting?
If we're faithful - we might be expecting Isaiah's
visions of peace and a new and just world
But if we know ourselves at all,
we may also know that our "real time" pictures of "peace" and "justice" and "harmony" are pretty parochial.
Often our peace and justice dreams are about our our particular lives,
at this particular time,
about wanting our families and friends to be healthy and happy
and about wanting the world's peoples around us to be well and happy
so we don't need to pay attention to them -
to rescue, feed, clothe, pray for, work for,
or have our sons and daughters defend them.
Cutting through all of these purely human expectations
- from Anna's & Joseph's, to our own -
Handel's Bass solo thunders out a prophet's warning:
"Who can abide the day of God’s coming, and who shall stand when God appears?
For he is like a refiner's fire - and will purify the heirs of Levi."
The prophetic themes of judgment, and sudden terror, which we heard earlier in Advent, can over-run our expectations of God's coming
and leave some of us hoping that, in fact,
God's isn't really going to turn up just yet.
So what are we expecting?
And who is coming?
You can probably figure out by now where I'm going. . . .
Who is coming depends first of all on what we are expecting.
We humans rarely see what we are not willing to notice.
Elizabeth, Mary's aunt, saw the mother of her Savior -
but she could just as easily have seen a disgraced teen-age niece.
Joseph saw a servant of God -and the future mother of his children,
but he might instead have seen his fiancé's betrayal.
The middle ages saw the epidemics of smallpox as God's judgment.
But an occasional country physician noticed that people who had already had "cow pox" survived –
so those physicians soon saw a totally preventable disease.
Russia's Babushka's saw a wall & a political system God might knock down,
while most of us saw an evil and impregnable empire
destined to ruin or rule the entire globe.
Some of us are looking for holiday perfection, -
and we will be relieved when the first few days of Christmas are over
and everyone but the church returns to "normal."
Others of us have little hope for anything good, never mind wonderful,
and we won't see much one way or the other,
except possibly a day to sleep late.
Still others are expecting pain, or loneliness or sorrow,
- expectations that almost always come true.
BUT there are three pieces of good news in all this:
First - we're expecting GOD to come - the God who is ALREADY HERE is Jesus.
so if you're really expecting the one who is here already
then -- your oven, or your child, your telephone, or your mom's hospital room,
the church's music and prayers, the local Macy's or Shop Rite,
the library, the cat, your neighbor, the Eucharist, or the mail --
all can be hiding places in which we can see and feel the God who loves us
if, we're looking - and expecting - that God may be there.
The second piece of news is even better -
God comes and makes herself known, EVEN when we aren't looking for God
and aren't expecting any one .
The shepherd's weren't looking for anything at all
They got a sky full of angels, and a baby in a cow byre.
And in that baby, the world (though I don't know about the shepherds)
saw and received the God who comes in Judgment -
but also treats the last just like the first;
We saw the God who comes to redeem Israel - and then
announces that all humankind is now Israel;
The God who comes to those in deep mourning, loneliness, and captivity
and sets them free for a new and hope-filled life;
The God who comes in endless power to destroy evil,
by dying on a cross, praying for and forgiving his enemies;
The God who comes in the darkness -
shedding light over the whole world.
The God who made everything and whose might holds all worlds in existence
but comes as a baby who needs to be fed, and changed and protected
by human parents.
For the greatest news of all is who this God who comes
has already showed herself to be.
In that sense, there is no way to adequately expect or prepare for the coming of the Christ.
How can we expect this Christ who is beyond all expectation?
And yet . . . . . . .All who watch and wait for his coming
are given power to see him, and to become children of God.
for the Word again is becoming flesh
and is tenting among us.
And we are called to behold that glory,
The glory of the God's Only-begotten, full of Grace and Truth.
For past week's readings and sermons, please visit the archive of sermons